MORGANTOWN, W. Va. — The West Virginia men’s basketball team woke up Sunday morning in a tie for fourth place in the Big 12 standings and with a favorable schedule for five of its last six games in the regular season.
That did little to soften the sting that came with Saturday’s 70-59 loss at top-ranked Baylor, a game the Mountaineers once trailed by 28 points.
The loss mathematically eliminated the Mountaineers (18-7, 6-6 Big 12) from the Big 12 title chase and if Kansas defeats Iowa State on Monday, WVU can finish no higher than third in the conference standings.
Getting to third will be no easy task, even with Texas Tech’s upset loss against Oklahoma State on Saturday.
The Mountaineers still trail the Red Raiders by a game in the league standings and if both teams finish with the same record, a complicated tie breaker using each school’s results against the highest teams in the final Big 12 standings would be needed.
That is all in the weeks to come.
As for the Mountaineers’ current struggles, their lack of offense was hard to miss.
The reasons behind it have been there for most of the season, including turnovers — there were a season-high 22 of them against the Bears — as well as the inability to get any good looks at the basket.
“It was turnovers and a lack of getting shots,” WVU guard Taz Sherman said. “With 22 turnovers, that’s at least 44 points we missed. If we cut down on turnovers, that’s more of a chance for us to get offensive rebounds and more of a chance for us to make some shots.”
After chipping away at a 19-point deficit in the first half, WVU began the second half with three turnovers that helped Baylor push the lead back up to 41-22.
“The second half, we turned it over the first three times. That makes it pretty rough,” Huggins said. “The first half, we just didn’t do anything we sat out to do. We have this incredible fascination for dribbling the ball. I haven’t seen a game yet where you get points for that.”
West Virginia also had its longest field-goal drought of the season, which covered the final 2:39 of the first half and lasted until Oscar Tshiebwe banked in a shot with 10:12 remaining in the game.
“We were impatient and weren’t looking at other options and not looking at our progressions. It’s focusing on one thing and not on the other things that we can do within our offense.”
That might be the Mountaineers’ largest concern.
During their three-game losing skid, the Mountaineers have never shot better than 34.5% from the field and they averaged 17.3 turnovers per game.
“That’s the one thing that killed us was the turnovers,” Tshiebwe said. “We have to take better care of the ball. We have to protect the ball. If you don’t have the ball, you’re not winning the game. If we keep turning the ball over, we’re not going to win.”
West Virginia next five games will come against team either tied or below them in the league standings.
WVU then closes the regular season with a home game against Baylor.
If the Mountaineers are to build any type of momentum heading into the Big 12 tournament, now is the time.
“Every game is going to be a fight now,” Sherman said. “Every game is going to be a must-win game from now on. Hopefully that will light a fire under us and make us play with a greater sense of awareness.”
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